


Betrayal

by Seductresses_Temple



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Break Up, Light Angst, M/M, Partner Betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 05:39:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17522918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seductresses_Temple/pseuds/Seductresses_Temple
Summary: Explosive breakups can lead to a roller coaster of emotions.





	Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for an Ask over on my Tumblr. The prompt was "He was betrayed" and was part of a three word/word count drabble challenge I started doing to help get over some writers block. I wound up going above and beyond the 1k mark the prompter asked for but I honestly fell in love with the prompt after a while.

Harry crumbled the _Daily Prophet_ in his hands and chucked it across the room. He watched it catch fire amongst the remaining kindling, burning lowly. He couldn’t remember if there had ever been a time in his life when he had been this livid. His memories came up empty handed - nothing compared to the hurt settling over him like dust in an old house. He didn’t understand how someone he trusted so deeply could betray him this way. Seething, he stalked through Grimmauld Place until he’d grabbed his coat and was out the door and disappearing from the Apparition point with a resounding 

 

_ Crack! _

 

Emerald eyes burning, Harry landed near a quiet street in muggle London and stalked toward a small flower shop. He chose to ignore the startled and perplexed glances of passersby as he threw open the door beside the shop and stormed the stairs two at a time until he reached the top landing. With a nonchalant wave of his hand the door to the upstairs apartment swung open noisily on its hinges -opened wandlessly and without care for privacy, the law, or any manner of decency. 

 

“Axel!” Harry’s voice sounded foreign to his own ears but he didn’t care. 

 

Axel came padding out into the living room moments later. His messy black curls were pulled into a loose bun and he looked to have just rolled out of bed, standing around with his head cocked to the side in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs and a crumpled button up. He smiled slowly, stepping closer despite the murderous look in Harry’s eyes and placing a kiss on his cheek.

 

“How could you?” Harry seethed, stepping back and wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. 

 

Axel chuckled, shaking his head as he turned away from Harry and made his way into the kitchen as if they were having a perfectly normal conversation. 

 

“It was just an interview, Harry, relax.” Axel picked up an orange from the fruit bowl, hopping up on the counter and kicking his legs back and forth as he peeled it. He seemed completely unfazed by anything he’d done which only set Harry off further. 

 

“ _ Just  _ an interview? You told those- those vultures personal things, intimate details about  _ my  _ life things that took me YEARS to open up to you about and all you have to say for yourself is that it was  _ just an interview _ !” Harry balled his hands into fists, trying to keep tight reins on his magic. He could feel it bubbling up just below the surface but he refused to lose control. He didn’t want to give Axel the satisfaction of knowing just how deeply he’d hurt him.

 

Harry still couldn’t believe it had come to this, all of his secrets splashed across the pages of the  _ Daily Prophet... _ how he actually had died during the war, how Voldemort had been in his head all those years, how he had been a Horcrux, and probably more. All of it was out for the entire wizarding world to see, leaked by a man that supposedly loved him. They had been together for almost four years and now…now, Harry couldn’t find it in his heart to forgive it, but he still had to know what would make Axel stoop so low after all this time. 

 

“Why?” Harry forced the word out of his mouth, knowing no answer would ever be good enough. 

 

Axel stopped peeling his orange. He looked at Harry, long and hard, his fingers trembling as he picked at the orange rind again. “You forgot my birthday, you know,” he muttered, voice suddenly small. 

 

“You did all this because I forgot your  _ birthday _ ?” There was a sharp crack and the mirror over the mantle crashed to the floor making Axel jump slightly. 

 

The air was thick with Harry’s magic, almost suffocating, but Axel pressed on. 

 

“You missed my birthday, you’ve missed date nights, you even forgot our anniversary this year, Harry. I had to do something to get your attention.” Axel stared down at the floor, Harry’s magic whipping around the room like a strong wind. It was hard to breathe against it. 

 

“Draco, he- he warned me about you...the day I introduced the two of you, I didn’t want to listen. He told me and I didn’t-” Harry ran a trembling hand through his hair, a high, shaky laugh escaping him. 

 

Axel threw the orange down into the sink, stalking over to Harry “Do  _ not  _ bring up that scourge in my house!” 

 

“What does Draco have to do with any of this! He’s my friend!” It was true. Sometimes it still caught Harry off guard that he and Draco could be as close as they were but it had happened in its own due time. After the war, Harry had been in a dark place and after he’d broken up with Ginny so that she didn’t have to choose between following her dreams or staying in a relationship with someone who barely knew themselves...Harry had been at an all time low. He’d begun seeing a Mind Healer and after every session he’d go for a walk in a nearby park to let everything sink in. That’s where Harry met Scorpius for the first time after he’d gotten separated from his father. He’d been a tiny little thing back then, no more than six. He noticed Harry’s scar and asked for help from ‘The Great Harry Potter,’ and he was so small and scared, only a truly heartless person could have denied him. 

 

Harry and Scorpius made quite the pair. They managed to find Draco right before he’d resorted to ripping his hair out from worry. Draco had been ridiculously grateful and invited Harry out to lunch before he even fully realized what he was doing. Scorpius was thrilled and before Harry or Draco knew, it became a weekly thing. Watching Draco raise Scorpius alone after Astoria’s death, Harry saw just how much the war had changed his former rival for the better and there was something about the new Draco Malfoy that brought Harry a great deal of peace. 

The only time Harry had seen even the slightest glimpse of the old  _ Malfoy  _ was when Harry had introduced Draco to Axel. All of a sudden Draco was back to being the same scathing, rude, pompous git he’d been all through their Hogwarts days. 

 

_ “There’s something about him I don’t trust,”  _ Draco had told him. 

 

Harry should have listened. He wished he had listened. He felt his magic deflate around him like a balloon hissing out air until it slipped somewhere unreachable. He looked at Axel who was staring at him intently, unmoving, and annoying resolute. 

 

“You know, Harry, sometimes,” Axel sighed softly, brushing past Harry to grab his wand from the coffee table. He Vanished the shattered remains of his mirror before turning back to Harry, tears in his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re just willfully ignorant, tragically oblivious, or just toying with me but either way, you came to break up with me and I can’t do this anymore so just- just go home Harry, or better yet? Go see Draco, I’m sure he’d jump at the chance to comfort you after ‘The Big Bad Wolf’ hurt you, yeah? But just go.”

 

“Axel…”

 

“Just go, Harry, there’s nothing for you here, hasn’t been for a while.”

 

With one final look, Harry left Axel’s apartment in a fog. He left with his relationship irreparably broken and no real clue as to when it had started to break, where it had all gone wrong. He’d been busy lately, sure, he was in the process of starting his own company. It required a lot of his attention and devotion. Maybe he had been...inattentive, as of late, which was wrong of course. Axel had been his boyfriend, someone special to him, he shouldn’t have let work come before his relationship, they  _ both  _ needed to be a priority in his life. But something in the way Axel spoke made Harry think the entire thing ran so much deeper than just a few missed special occasions. 

 

**He was betrayed** ...by his own boyfriend, and for what? Petty vengeance? That wasn’t the Axel he knew. A part of Harry was half tempted to go see Draco, maybe he could connect the dots Harry just wasn’t seeing, or maybe Hermione could. Everything felt like a giant jigsaw puzzle with just enough pieces missing to make the final picture so unclear. All he knew for sure was there was no fixing this. Even if he could find it in his heart to forgive Axel -of course he would forgive Axel, eventually- he would never trust him again though, and what was a relationship, any relationship, without trust?

 

In the end, Harry headed back home to Grimmauld Place and was met with a pleasant if not confusing surprise. He followed the smell of warm treacle tarts down into the kitchen, head tilting to the side as he took in the sight of Draco humming to himself as he bustled about Harry’s kitchen. Harry forgot at least once every few months that since Grimmauld Place was no longer the headquarters for The Order of the Phoenix, Draco’s Black lineage allowed him to come and go as he pleased. The only thing thing capable of putting a stop to it was Harry changing the wards which seemed like far too much work on Harry’s end. Plus, it wasn’t like Draco would ever abuse the right, he just had the tendency to show up unannounced but it almost always ended in treacle tart for Harry so who was he to complain?

 

“Honey, I’m home?” 

 

Draco stopped short, a tray of biscuits in one hand and his wand in the other, keeping two cups of tea afloat in front of him. He gave Harry an arch look,  _ harrumphing  _ in the back of his throat as he continued to set the table with tea, biscuits, and treacle tart.

 

“About time you made it back, Potter. Please, worry me half to death next time, I’ve clearly nothing better to do with Scorpius away at school.” Draco brought plates to the table before sitting down at the head of the table, resting ankle over knee, lounging ever so slightly against the back of his chair as if he owned the place. 

 

“You are aware that this is  _ my  _ house, you git?” Still, Harry sat down and cut himself a piece of treacle tart because he couldn’t resist. 

 

Draco rolled his eyes, grabbing a biscuit off the tray and breaking it in half “Circumstantial,” he murmured around the edge of it before taking a bite, chewing slowly as he regarded Harry with a steady gaze. 

 

They sat in silence for a moment, Draco sipping his tea and Harry eating a slice or two or three of treacle tart before either of them said a word. 

 

“You were right,” Harry whispered to the treacle tart, gripping his fork unnecessarily hard in a vain attempt to keep the tears from rolling down his cheeks. 

 

“How are you  _ always  _ right?” he added quietly, an afterthought. 

 

Draco set both his feet on the floor and scooted forward, gently sliding his hand over the top of Harry’s. “Being the sort of person that’s made his fair share of horrid mistakes, well-” Draco smiled sadly, caressing the top of Harry’s hand with the pad of his thumb. “I suppose, I’m just very good at spotting the worst in people. Rest assured, I don’t take any pleasure in it, it’s a terrible burden, to see the people you care about in a position where they’ll eventually be hurt.”

 

“Did you really come all this way just because of what was in the paper?” Harry murmured, still talking to his half eaten slice of treacle tart. 

 

“Well, once I read it, I firecalled and you didn’t answer,” Draco did his best to make the statement sound as accusatory as he could but it lacked any real heat behind it. “Then, I had to go through the arduous task of making actual  _ phone calls  _ just to make sure you hadn’t gotten yourself detained by the DMLE and then, I came here, hoping you’d come to your senses and come home instead of doing something reckless like getting yourself carted off to Azkaban.” 

 

Harry thought about the shattered mirror on Axel’s floor, how hard it had been to keep a handle on his magic. He’d almost lost complete control and in the moment -until Axel had kicked him out- there was a large piece of Harry that simply hadn’t cared. He could have hurt someone. Sometimes he truly was just as reckless as when he was a boy. “Am I really that predictable?” He sighed, Draco’s expression telling him all he needed to know. 

 

“You’re an absolute Gryffindor,” Draco muttered as if it were painstakingly obvious. When he managed to at least get a chuckle out of Harry, he set to work clearing the table, resuming his quiet humming.

 

“Draco?”

 

“Yes Harry?”

 

“What- what made you so distrusting of Axel?”

 

Draco froze, back to Harry. He let several moments pass between them before turning around and leaning against the counter. Some expression Harry couldn’t read passed over his face before he finally spoke. “The day you brought Axel with you, I had made some joke about how you and I weren’t swingers and how dare you bring some random stranger out on our date and Axel just, well, he froze and there was this look in his eyes that I knew all too well. I had seen it in myself so many times. Possessiveness. Jealousy. Insecurity. From then, I just took to watching him and the more I saw you two together the more I realized he just wasn’t right for you, he didn’t deserve you.” Draco turned around quickly, busying himself with the spices all of a sudden. 

 

Harry tried to think back. It had been four years ago, so much had happened since then, but hearing it from Draco he did remember the way Axel had tensed beside him. He thought it was just nerves. Butterflies. He knew Draco’s sense of humor wasn’t particularly for everyone. People either thought he was hilarious or a prat, there tended to be little to no in between. Except for Ron, he would always think Draco was a prat but at least now he thought he was a  _ hilarious  _ prat. But Axel…

 

It was pointless. The more Harry dwindled on Axel the more he just wanted to curl into his bed and not come out until the day was through. “He was the only guy I’d ever dated that saw me as just Harry,” he lamented, finishing the last of his tea and staring into the bottom of the cup as if he’d somehow find answers at the bottom. 

 

“That’s part of the problem though, isn’t it?” Draco turned to Harry, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. It wasn’t like Draco Malfoy to not say the first thing that came tumbling to the forefront of his mind. 

 

“What is it?” Harry rested his hand on Draco’s shoulder, peering into his eyes and that one small gesture seemed to be all it took. 

 

“You deserve to be with someone who knows the duality of you, someone who knows that as much as you’re  _ just  _ Harry, you’re also The Boy Who Lived and you’ll always hate. You don’t take any pleasure or pride in it. You deserve to be with someone who knows that they’ll have to share you with the world but only they would get pieces of you that no one else will and they should cherish that. You deserve someone who would never betray you. You deserve- you deserve,” before Harry truly knew what was happening, velvet soft lips were crashing into his. 

 

The kiss was rough, passionate, and so heartbreakingly desperate. Harry realized, with a shock so huge it seemed to root him to the spot, that Draco was crying, his tears wetting their cheeks as Harry’s brain slowly caught up with him. He pulled Draco into his arms and held him close, kissing him back just as fiercely, just as desperate, trying to pour years worth of love he hadn’t even realized had been blooming inside of him into it. His nerve endings felt raw, electrified, alive -the tumultuous events of the day crashing into him all at once - yet and still, Draco in his arms was the first thing that felt right in such a long time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi over on [ Tumblr! ]() Holy shit! I just taught myself the code for a hyperlink!!!! I'm so proud!


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